Copyright for wrongs.

This is my first piece on Copyright; this is more of an introduction to what my take is on the history of it. The subject itself is too deep to simply present all the facts and all the information, but ultimately I hope to present a reasoned opinion on it as I write more on the subject.

First and foremost I wish to make it clear that these are my own simple thoughts on the issues of copyright theft. I do not condone piracy nor do I condone a lifetime of servitude to all who are slaves to a contract between an owner of copyright and a provider of works to the copyright owner.

In the beginning.

Music was something you had to go to. It couldn’t be bought, it couldn’t be switched on or off, you had to go to the hall when the orchestra visited and pay the price for admission. Some hung outside quietly catching snippets of the performance.

Recorded music changed all. With the invention of the gramophone it became possible to place a recording of the music on a storage medium, that storage medium being a humble Wax disc not too dissimilar from a vinyl LP. Few possessed the technology to do this and those few started a business of recording performances pressing them to wax discs and selling them to the public so that they too could enjoy a musical experience even if they could not afford the price of a ticket to the concert.

An Idea refined.

In order to create an incentive to musicians a slice of the sales of music was offered, it was not much but that was negotiable to an extent (though that extent was still around %2-4). The greater the sale of the music, the more likely that artist was to produce more work. The extra funds earned from the sale of music by the recorded sound companies was re-invested in technology and finding new talent in order to increase sales and deliver more of what people wanted to hear.

The business model wasn’t the only thing that was refined, technology was refined too. Recording quality had improved dramatically, professional quality Mic’s and magnetic tape brought multi-track recording to the play. The early benefits can be heard on great music from artists like Ray Charles (Night and Day). The concept of home tape recording brought with it the ability for the home listener to compile his/her own recordings or make a mix tape that they could pass to a friend. The humble audio cassette became the first anti-piracy target of the music industry.

But with thanks to bands like Metallica, bootleg recordings of concerts were encouraged in order to help the band’s sound permeate the masses.

The industry progressed from wax to harder wearing Vinyl and the quality of the sound improved dramatically as a result.

When Harry met Sally….

Digital technology finally reached a point where it was possible to represent real music as binary code, etched into a fine sliver of metals coated in plastic, the compact disc revolutionized the distribution, and storage of music and came with a subsequent price hike. There is a debate as to whether CD’s are a ‘rip-off’ that’s a separate issue. An almost unholy marriage of the analogue (sound) to a digital medium

This marriage of digital technology and sound recordings is ultimately what has lead to an enormous decline in the profitability of the music industry. Initially it was thought that CD copying technology would be too expensive for anyone to own but those of us in technology knew that the potential data storage capability of the CD would be exploited cheaply soon enough it was only a matter of time.

The birth of CD piracy.

At first the CD writing machines were industrial machines that cost a huge sum of money to purchase and run. But the humble PC changed that. With increasing improvements in computer technology it became possible to mimic a lot of that process in software, resulting in the production of small compact CD writers that you could slot into your computer at home.

People now had the power to copy CD’s at will and many early adopters exploited that. Once it became possible to copy CD’s it was only a matter of time before the data itself could be lifted and stored.

Imaging - Separating the intangible from the physical.

Copying software became more advanced, and it became possible to store the draw data of a CD as a file on a computer that you could simply burn to another CD at will. It wasn’t long before it was realised that the next step was to lift the data of the disc verbatim and store it as an uncompressed Wave file on a computer’s hard disc. This took quite a large amount of storage (650mb-700mb) for a full 74-80 minutes of music.

MPEG Encoding Technology.

A number of new devices started to appear on the market promising a digital revolution that ended up not going anywhere. The Commodore CDTV was born and it had a capability to playback movies that were stored on CD. The race to develop a system of compression that could enable this to happen resulted in the production of the MPEG Codec. The first stab at taking a movie and its associated data and compressing it so that it could fit on a couple of CD’s.

Different levels of compression were used to deliver the finished product but the one that the music industry is interested in the most is a codec known as MPEG Layer 3 or more commonly MP3. Using this technology it became possible to turn a 60mb wave file into a compact 3-4mb with a little discernible quality loss. MP3 created a digital revolution for content distribution that culminated with the founding of Napster.

Napster

Regarded as the first and greatest music file sharing service; Napster would scan your computer for MP3’s and make them freely available for download to anyone else who used Napster. Napster re-defined the role of technology and media distribution. It challenged the old way of doing business by eliminating business from the equation.

The greatest issue created by Napster was simply one of money. Napster could deliver all the content available anywhere on anyone’s computer to anyone’s computer, with (in its hey-day) over 2 petabytes of data available on the network. The real problem this presented to business is simply that no money was changing hands so technically was it piracy?

The availability of music on this kind of scale was unheard of, you could get that old song by Pink Floyd faster than you could find it in a store and not even pay for it. Just type in the name and there it was.

The Music industry did whatever it could to bring Napster down without really understanding the technology behind it. In the process it ostracised many fans and instigated a swathe of lawsuits in an attempt to protect its property.

Interestingly enough Metallica lead the charge against Napster and instead of suing the individual who was distributing their music, they sued the organisation that the files were sourced from.

A dying era.

They say ‘No one missed the door to door ice sales guy when the fridge was invented.’ That may be the case, but that guys family probably missed the income.

Today I’m Listening to:

Play Dead by Bjork & David Arnold

Phorms PR blitz, more like a fart in a bathtub.

Phorm, the company that sells ISP’s a targeted ad spying system, have been very havily embroiled in a PR offensive that quite frankly doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

All Phorm no substance.

Phorm’s PR companies are trying to present the system being offered in terms of service and value; the issue that they are facing is that they are fighting against technology people who actually understand how the system is put together and see beyond the simple oh it’ll just give you ‘more relevant ads.’

But the New York times sums the Phorm ’service’ up very nicely

New York Times, 20th March 2008

“As you browse, we’re able to categorize all of your Internet actions,” said Virasb Vahidi, the chief operating officer of Phorm. “We actually can see the entire Internet.”

Ironic

Ever get the feeling that the PR machine isn’t working quite as smoothly as it perhaps should? 

I find it amusing that the biggest issue Phorm faces is controlling its public image in light of what is out there on the wider internet. It’s ironic that a firm built on the principal of profiling Internet communications is having an Internet communications crisis of its own.

Phorm’s share price has tanked, the FIPR believe that it’s methodology may be illegal, and now ISP’s who were once going to be partners are facing lawsuit’s as a result of their complicity. There is only one office in the UK that has the power to stop Phorm or let them have their way with our Internet connections. the office of Richard Thomas the Information Commissioner. But its not quite that simple.

His office is in the process of piecing together a reprot that will address the legality of Phorm’s proposed system, the results of which are expected in a couple of weeks.

Relationships

But the damage is done, the public’s relationship with their ISP has been damaged by this, the reputations of those ISP’s are also damaged. Phorm’s involvement will cost millions in lost customers, millions in future sales, and that is just the beginning. The PR blitz Phorm is engaged in will not help those ISP’s who are already losing customers as a result.

Final Opinion

Phorm is a double edged sword, a poison apple almost. The companies and organisations that use it will be viewed as de-valuing their customer base and also as miss-treating the privacy and security of their customers. Those same customers will leave those ISP’s as they already are doing so, and are doing so before the service is even live. Phorm went down this path without having the full legality of their proposal supported by the ICO. Their investors are deserting the company as I would envisage rats from a sinking ship.  BT is under threat of legal action as it initiated a trial secretly during the Summer of 2007 without informing customers what they were doing or why.

If the ICO’s opinion does not rule in Phorm’s favour then there will be a public reckoning. If it does then public opinion will be damaged along with the reputation of the ICO and the companies that use the technology.

In the meantime the message is clear if you are an ISP anywhere in the world.

PHORM = BAD NEWS FOR YOUR BUSINESS.

 

Today Phorm is staring down:

Barrel of a Gun by Depeche Mode

The Gospel of K0rs0 part 3

 Not content with creating the universe and basic physi…. Uhm sucky forces god has turned his attention to the creation of planets but he doesn’t call them that yet cos he hasn’t finished inventing them (and the patent office wont be around for at least a few billio… Uhm thousand years)

So I’ve got this gas here and this dust, I’ll smash it all together and see what happens, but since this is a project, it needs a project name. The name can’t be too descriptive because I cant file with the patent office yet, I know! I’ll call it Codename Bum, no one who will exist would guess that.

How long should I spend, well the concept of a day is a bit pointless in interstellar space, given that I haven’t even started making other things yet including days, but despite that fact I’ll take six days. And just as there was no point for the concept of a day there was also no point for the project bum Gant chart……..

Project Bum Day 1

I need some tools to move all this crap to one spot. So what I’ll do is spend today inventing some tools that I can use to move stuff around. I need something that can scoop stuff up and deposit it somewhere else in a sort of shoving motion. Shoving…. Shov… a Shovel! Great a slightly smaller version for tricky corners could be handy sort of cut-down shovel. A dowel… no. Trowel!

Gas is a bit tricky but I’ve discovered that if you squeeze it enough it can become a sort of liquid, hmm, how do I move that liquid…. Perhaps something that’s hollow on the inside but with no ends, I can suck the liquid up and blow it out where I need it. But I cant call it the sucky thing I’ve already got that and don’t need confusion. Its not exactly a container and is cylindrical a tub… TUBE!

I’ve used my shovel, trowel and tube to get the gas and dust into one spot but its sort of just sitting there. I might leave it and come back tomorrow for a second look.

Project Bum Day 2

Not much different today, damn this is taking a while. Well that’s it the time for action is at hand. God then squashed the gas and dust together in his hands and then rolled it out flat. Nice thought god. I’ll leave it to dry and come back tomorrow.

Project Bum Day 3

What The….. Its turned into a sphere, honestly you sweat and slave and turn your back for 5 minutes and suddenly it’s a bloody sphere. Well we’ll see about that.. What I need is something big and heavy with handles. Like my tube on its side only where the ends are I’ll put the handles in. It will roll the thing flat. A Rolling Pin! God took the rolling pin and rolled Bum flat once more. That’ll show it.

Project Bum Day 4

….. …….. F…… F…… S…….. It’s a bloody sphere again. This time I’ll roll it flat and I’ll bloody watch it.

Project Bum Day 4 (and a little bit)

“Oh!” Proclaimed god as he watched Bum tear apart at the edges and collapse in on itself. It’s the same shape as those star thingies I made earlier I guess they are circular for a reason… Aahhh yes the sucky force that’s relative to the mass of everything. If there was no time it would stay flat, dammit.

I guess I’d better leave it and come back tomorrow when all this has settled down.

Project Bum Day 5

Well it’s a sphere again. But it looks a bit barren, sort of rocky with no atmosphere. I wonder thought god. What if I were, uhm you know. Well let’s find out, god turned around pulled up his robes and defecated in the general direction of Bum. The gas cloud settled around the planet forming an atmosphere, but god squeezed a little too hard and lo the appropriately named ‘Moon’ was created as well.

God looked at Bum and Moon and thought to himself ‘damn I really gotta go………

Stay tuned for Part 4 when god finishes project bum on day 6 and then changes the name for the launch party on day 7; and also realises that living things need food to generate energy in order to live but forgot that consumed food has to be ‘deposited’ to relieve the internal pressure.

Today God is listening to:

Epic by Faith No More

Why PHORM Can PHUCK OPH!

Hello all, once again I have been gone from my blog for more time than seems healthy. but I have been a bit busy with stuff as always.

Today I’ve decided to try and help raise awareness of a service called Webwise created by a group of assholes called Phorm.

What is this Phorm stuph then?

Phorm is a company built on top of 121 Media, the very same company that installed extrememly difficult to remove spyware products on your home PC that would bombard your system with pop-up adverts. 121 Media not content with having its malware identified as Spyware by every major anti-virus company on earth decided that it could do more.

Phorm was born and what they do is sell advertising products to ISP’s. Their system works by capturing every single web page request made by EVERY SINGLE Customer at an ISP. Building up an advertising profile that is then used to process mangle the web pages you visit and return those pages with targetted ads based on data gleaned by tracking your web usage.

Let me be clear on this from a technical stand-point the phorm system relies on all outbound traffic being relayed to it on layer 7, each page viewed is captured and processed and fed back to you the user with lovely targetted ads.

But it gets better, they tell you that you can opt-out, basically all this means is that they allegedly stop filling the pages with their targeted adverts, they still perform the data capture. What does this mean for you, the customer? Well basically it means that a third party system, has complete unfettered, un-restricted access to see every single site you have visited, every page you visited on that site everything you posted to that site and they can read everything that you viewed and did. Think about that when you read your webmail, or your on-line bank account details (SSL encrypted or not, SSL proxying is a reality), when you are visiting blogs, when you make a donation to a political party, book a holiday or when your kids are visiting their favourite sites.

What is your guarantee that they dont do this? Well you have to accept their word on it. Is this an acceptable approach to personal security on the internet?

There is no simple way of getting around Phorm’s advertising blitzing technology blocking the web services phorm provides will cut you off from the internet as every data packet has to travel through their system. and Opting out does not stop the data capture process.

Those of you living in the UK should be aware that BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse, are offering this ’service’. The private communications data of 10 million citizens is being pimped to phorm. Those of you who live in the US should be aware that Phorm are in discussions with your ISP’s too.

Phor more inpormation on phorm please visit the protest site http://www.badphorm.co.uk

Some additional information - Update.

With thanks to Barry Tork who drew my attention to http://www.politicalpenguin.org.uk you can check out details on Phorm’s patent on-line at the Politcal Penguin blog by following this link http://www.politicalpenguin.org.uk/blog/p,295/  . Political Penguin also have some excellent articles related to the Phorm system.

Cheers Barry and thanks for the info relating to Phorm’s dirty information campaign being conducted by its PR company ‘Citigate Dewe Rogerson.‘

 Tonight I’m listening to

Labyrinth by The Cure

The Gospel of K0rs0 Part 2

Well its been a long time coming, but the universe wasn’t made in 6 da…. Shut up.

Last time he created the universe, this time God turns his attention to basic physics, because everything was created by god (cos I’ve just said it was) so he had to do the hard shit too. This bible is totally infallible because I’ve just typed into it that it is.

Damn I’m bored, thought the spirit of God.

These bright shiny things, I think I’ll call em stars, they look pretty but they just sort of float around. What I need is a sucky force that sort of keeps things sort of loosely stuck together but also apart if you catch my drift. I’ll relate it to the size of the object so the bigger something is the stronger the sucky force; unless its really big and collapses into something really small and that has even more suck than seems reasonable it’ll suck so much that nothing can escape. And lo the spirit of God proclaimed ‘Let there be a sort of sucky force related to how big something is, unless its really small in which case it may have possibly even more suckyness unless it doesn’t’. And suddenly Gravity was invented, but it didn’t really work very well.

Afterwards God thought to himself I reckon Size is the wrong thing to use for this, because I am god and therefore male (because all gods are male and white with long white beards) I have a size pre-occupation. But, something can be really big, or small and still have the same sort of heaviness. I need a word for this, something that sounds suitably religiony…. MASS! God proclaimed “The other shit I said about Size forget about it, instead make it so that its related to mass!”. Damn, I’ve got to sort out some kind of infallibility…..

I would never have thought that everything depends on everything else. Pfft, before too long you’d think this place evolved, erm I mean… Shut up.  Now I need something for suckyness to happen in, it’s like there’s this force but it can’t really work because there’s like no space for it to work in. God proclaimed thus “Let there be a passage of something that will make the sucky force work, which is also proportionally relative to the MASS of everything else”. Suddenly the universe arranged itself into galaxies because god just created time for gravity to happen in.

But I’ve got to come up with something that will alleviate the boredom factor a bit, there’s a pile of dust over there, and some gas here, I’m sure I can have a rummage around for some other stuff too…

Stay tuned for part 3 where god realises he cant have gravity and a world that’s flat.

A parade of dumbasses. (Golden Compass)

Stupid 

You know, sometimes the stupidity of some people really surprises me, and believe me I work in IT we deal with a lot of stupid. Once more I was happily reading the news, when an overall theme became apparent. The lines of reality and fiction have become blurred! They must have done because some people seriously can’t tell the difference! That’s right just like the bible, Golden Compass is first and foremost a work of fiction.Golden Compass is the first of a series of novels written by Pillip Pullman.

Hates God (apparently)

Mr. Pullman may not exactly be an atheist (unlike me) and far be it for me to point out differences, but much like reality and fiction, hate and a lack of belief are incontrovertibly different. Hate denotes belief and atheists do not believe.

It’s rather difficult to hate something that quite simply doesn’t exist.  Therefore Mr. Pullman is something else.

Fiction

But I digress as it’s very hard to have a debate with religious people; a  group of people who accepted a book (most of which was written up to 100 years after the alleged events) as a concrete fact. I guess religious types understand the power of a fiction having followed one for many, many years, and there-in lies the problem.

When presented with facts and scientific data it takes quite a nerve to on the one hand sit in front of and use a computer (delivered via the scientific and technological revolution) ; whilst on the other hand using it to decry scientific discovery as something that merely tests faith.

You will fictionalise fact, and instead treat a fiction as fact. No wonder religion has a tough time determining what is real and what isn’t.  But as always I’m a solutions man I’ll give you all my top 10 reality and unreality list.

Real	Unreal
Iraq war	The evidence that lead to the Iraq war
No God	The Bible
Grand Theft Auto	Grand Theft Auto 1, 2, 3, and coming soon 4!
WMD’s	Iraq’s WMD’s
Quantum Theory	String Theory
Evolution	(th)Intelligent Design
Earth Is Round	The Catholic Church’s conviction that it wasn’t.
Global Warming	Everything is A O.k.
Fact	Fiction
Science	Religion

Today I’m Listening To:

Imagine by:John Lennon

Climate Change - A matter of perspective.

As the world leaders attempt to wrangle out some cncensus agreement in Bali during the UN session, it struck me how wrongly most people perceive the climate issue.

A question of perception. 

Most people seem to have a miss-understanding that we are killing the planet. The actual truth of the matter is that we are in fact killing ourselves. Man will be his own destoyer in the bitter end. 

 The real problem is that we are changing the bio-chemical make-up of hte atmosphere and rising levels of pollution are changing the chemistry further. But we arent killing the planet, Earth will continue to exist long after humanity sees its last setting sun. Will the next inhabitants of this world treat it with respect or rape it as we have done.

Life on earth has evolved to exist in a neat symbiotic relationship with the environment around us. Change that environment dramatically and the parameters will shift and, not in our favour. I hope that a concensus agreement is met.

 So I offer this thought; Should the leaders of our time fail us, what will you do?

What do I do to try and alleviate the issues. 

What do I do? I dont own a car or even drive, I use public transport when necessary for the most part I cycle. I work from home some days and use energy saving bulbs. I dont own a TV and I switch off my electrical goods at night except for my energy efficient firdge. I only run an air conditioner for short periods and even then not at low temperatures. I very rarely travel anywhere that requires a plane.

Bearing that in mind, how many of you gave a colleague a lift into work this morning? Solving the climate issue starts with small changes that everyone can make.

The Death of Privacy (well in the UK).

You RIPA!

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is a piece of legislation that has been enacted in the UK for a few years.  Despite this, one component part of RIPA remained un-activated until October 1st 2007. UK Citizens are being told that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. Nothing to fear except their government perhaps.

The component of the legislation that was ‘activated’ deals with criminalising anyone who:-

1. Fails to present a decryption key for encrypted data upon demand from the authorities.
2. Tells anyone else that the  key has been requested except for their lawyer.

What if you genuinely cant remember your passphrase or password or can’t produce a decrypted form of the encrypted data? Simple if you fail to prove your innocence you will go to jail for 5 years. I don’t know about you, but I remember all my passwords from the past 15 years….

An abuse of your rights.

Lets say I don’t like you, and I decide to send to you a CD that contains an encrypted data file, lets say I tip-off the police anonymously that that person is part of a plot to kill the prime minister and that the plans were kept in an encrypted form.

How the hell would you be able to prove that you don’t have the passphrase? How could you prove that the CD is not yours if your finger prints got on it when you opened the envelope?

Ways around this stupidity.

For those who need it, there are methods that can be used to get around this issue. Using Truecrypt its possible to encrypt files and hide others completely so that they do not appear to exist. You can not decrypt what does not exist.

Re-house your data abroad, but not within the United States. I would suggest other nations such as Australia, Canada and European nations.

If you need to encrypt small quantities of sensitive data, Steganography (embeds encrypted data in an image) is a prospective solution.

Ensure your decryption and public keys expire so that if they are requested by the authorities they will become unusable at a certain time. Also changing a key and passphrase regularly can greatly improve your personal security.

In a situation where a draconian measure like this has been forced onto the general populace, the best form of defence is plausible deniability.

What the hell is wrong with the PS3?

Sony has held the top position in the Game console market for several years, but its grip on the market is loosening.

Technically speaking.

The PS3 is a killer of a console, and has some of the most incredible hardware available on the market, to be quite frank, there is only one hardware platform that can come close to it and that’s the PC and even then it would be a very expensive PC.

3.2GHz Cell Processor
nVidia RSX 550MHz
Dolby 5.1 DTS LPCM
1Gb NIC
11g/b Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
Blu-Ray Drive
Detachable HDD
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz
HDMI Output

At launch there were two major problems that faced Sony and this is reflected in the disappointing sales figures encountered by the company. Firstly, HDTV had not entered mainstream and secondly the playstation 3 is a very expensive toy.

HDTV

At a time when 90% of all installed TV’s globally are Standard Definition, Sony chose to release a games console that could only truly deliver on a HDTV display. This is simply poor judgement on the part of the Japanese electronics giant.  A more appropriate strategy would have been to hold out for 12 more months until the market penetration for HDTV had started to make serious in-roads from the enthusiasts to the John Doe’s. Ultimately what happened was a console that was too much too soon made it to a market that was not ready for it.

Show me the money

Here in Australia the average retail price of a PS3 is $998. This is hugely expensive for what is a toy and prices it out of reach of most families. The scariest part of that price tag is that despite the expense Sony do not make a profit on any PS3 that they sell. The component costs are so great that Sony sell the machines at a considerable loss. Despite that fact the PS3 price tag is well out of reach of the average family.  And unfortunately for Sony that’s their target market.

Marketing

The PS3 is so powerful that it can do many things, but that in turn creates a marketing nightmare. The PS3 is being marketed as a digital entertainment hub, but it has two major competitors in that space. Microsoft and Apple, and frankly Sony’s message is being lost. The PS3 won’t find much buy-in with people who already have invested heavily in networked PC media systems who have a wide choice when it comes to media playback devices for the home.

The PS3 is expensive enough to present many potential customers with a quandary, do I buy the replacement Computer or the PS3, and the last time I checked Microsoft Office doesn’t run on a PS3. At this price point this is the reality its competing against. It is too in-flexible to replace a PC and its too expensive to be just a toy.

Catch 22

That’s just the start of the problems, the PS3 needs killer games fast. Games are what sell a games console, not fanciful services like Home. Home is interesting from a conceptual stand-point but a games console is not much without games, and quite frankly the PS3 doesn’t have those killer apps yet. Unless Sony can increase the sales of the PS3 dramatically it will not get the titles that it desperately needs. Without those titles the console will not sell. Especially when it comes with such a hefty price tag.

60GB? 80GB?

The next problem with the PS3 is the hard drive. Quite simply its too damn small. With 60GB you could maybe fit two blu-ray 25GB movie’s on it and that’s it full. 80GB is about the same. Most new Desktop PC’s are shipped with 500GB to 1TB of storage space. And with Only one disk slot on a PS3 what do we do when it fills? Buy a bigger one? How do we get the data and our purchases of the other drive, or do we need to swap the drives like an asshole every time we want to watch purchases downloaded on the other drive?

Big Mistake.

One great feature of the Playstation range has been superb backwards compatibility with earlier titles. But Sony slapped its fans in the face by stripping the hardware based emulation out of the PS3 and replacing it with ineffectual software emulation. This single decision served two purposes against Sony. 1. It alienated the Sony fanbase that had accumulated a large library of software. 2. That will have resulted in lost potential sales as the upgrade path was no longer guaranteed.

In order to help the situation Sony released a list of compatible software, however some games that it says run fine actually may execute correctly, but specialist controllers for the games wont work, Guitar Hero II springs to mind.

My Conclusions….

The PS3 was too much released too soon at too high a price. It will not break into the market easily with a price tag of more than US$500. The console tries to do too much as a result of its over-specced hardware, and Sony are paying a serious price for that. It can not compete against the Wii and many of the exclusive titles are rapidly becoming cross-platform as developers seek to minimise their exposure to a platform that is not meeting expectations.

As a media platform It can not compete against the fexibility of a PC. Many people who have heavily invested in home theatre and PC media based systems are extremely unlikely to purchase a PS3 to do the same task.

I believe that the right place for the PS3 is Christmas this year, however with global credit markets putting the squeeze on interest rates, home owners who are already struggling with mortgage repayments are going to find it tough to justify such a massive expense. The cost of the console is only the beginning, the display that you need to take advantage of it is going to be at least an additional AU$2000. This brings the TCO of a PS3 up to AU$3000.

The PS3 is a device for the future, unfortunately for Sony that future is being eroded as other technologies which are keeping pace with Consumer sentiment stay in line with the wallet, and not the aspiration.

Qualifier.

Iam not simply a PC fanboy or a Mac fanboy, I am a technology fanboy and as such I am still going to buy a PS3 because despite the short-comings its the cheapest Blu-Ray movie player on the market. It also supports DLNA which is handy from a PC perspective. Maybe one day the aspirations will be equal to the promise that the PS3 may live up to.

Pimp My Ride Pt. 2

A horse walks into a Bar…… 

Well… What can I say except that recently I upgraded my beautiful bicycle. The first pimpage that I have carried out on it to date has involved me buying some new handlebars to replace the original ones on it, which were a simple aluminium bar with Carbon Stryke clip-ons, that although are good were let down by virtue of the fact that they were clip-ons.

The original bars had what is referred to as ’standard’ aero bars these have a hockey stick like appearance. Here let me show you….

Carbon Stryke Aero Clip-On

I decided to go for something that was flatter and a little more integrated. Because if any of you have used clip-ons before you’ll know they have some short-comings.

Captain Clip-on

Clip-ons have a couple of problems that I have experienced, the first is simply feel and feedback. Firstly when you ride with clip-ons the very fact that they are not integrated into the handlebar makes the ride feel dull and to an extent un-responsive but the second issue is a bit more serious; Put enough force/weight on your clip-on and it will pitch forward. Which of course presents the prospect of sending you head over handlebars. Integrated bar extensions solve this problem because the extensions arent clamped to the bar, they are locked into the handlebars.

The Solution

Bontrager XXX Aerobar - Carbon

A US$600 sight to behold. Pictured above with the Standard aero bar extensions, I however ordered mine with what is reffered to as the S type extensions. The S-type have a very slight bend that bring the front of the bars under the palms of your hands with a very slight tip downwards. One important fact to note is that the main body of the aerobar is oversize, so you may need to purchase an oversize bar stem to make it fit your ride.

 A Drag at parties?

This has one major benefit when you move into the aero-dynamic tuck. Your back is flatter against the wind which reduces your drag! Handy in races, but it may not improve your performance at partays.

S Bend Aero Bars to be less of a drag.

How does the bike handle with my $600 love fest? Well it feels like a different bike. Because of the integration into the main body of the handlebars and also because of the stiffness of Carbon the feel of the ride has changed to something more dramatic.  The handling is much more direct and requires me to make a minor hint as to the direction I want to turn in order to make the bike go there. Climbs are easier because the ridgidity in the handlebars makes it easy to sit out of saddle to pump the peddles for up hill sections.

The final Package……